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The internet is getting faster by the day, and it is impossible to deny the benefits this brings to its users around the world. Almost every basic or complex thing that needs doing can be accomplished in minimal time; looking up stuff, collaborating on a project, gaming online, streaming videos, etc have all become a lot simpler and more commonplace. That said, a speedy connection could also bring some major annoyance, such as autoplay videos when you visit a website for another specific reason.

Many website owners think it is all right to sic an unrelated video on you the minute you land on their main page. Some of these stay relatively unobtrusive by playing in one corner of the screen, while others are more in your face, and require you to locate and click the X just so you can get back to your intended business. In both cases, it normally rankles the user that they cannot control whether or not these videos launch in the first place. Luckily though, they can; all it takes are a few tweaks to your browser program’s settings, and you can disable such videos for good.

In Chrome

Google has been bringing lots of changes in Chrome’s autoplay policies of late, and one downside of this is having to look for them. The company talked a big game about making things stricter with the policy, only to roll it back when HTML5 indie game developers protested how it was affecting their income. Because of that, Chrome is now holding a lax approach, and any user wishing to block autoplay videos would need to make some adjustments themselves. Following is how to block pop ups of this sort in Chrome.

Click on Chrome’s omnibar and type in chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy.

Click on the dropdown menu shown beside Autoplay policy to see four options:

Default (Autoplay stays enabled);

No user gesture is required (Autoplay stays enabled);

User gesture is required for cross-origin iframes (Autoplay stays enabled in cases where the video is not hosted on another sites; and

Choose the final option to block the autoplay provision. Now, you can be sure that nothing will play as long as you do not interact with the page.

Controlling Chrome’s Flash Video Playback Setting

By fault, Chrome leaves flash videos disabled, and if a page tries to play one, the browser asks whether you want it to allow that. It is possible to fine-tune the setting so that videos on specific sites can play, and others cannot. For that, or to fix flash player not working on Chrome, you need to do the following.

Visit the domain from which you want to let videos through, and click on the padlock image shown in browser’s the address bar.

Select Site settings, and then open the dropdown beside Flash. Choose among Ask, Allow, and Block, based on your preference. That allows setting absolute rules for each website, which effectively means some websites cannot throw their videos at you when you visit. You can also block other things from specific websites, such as sounds, for instance.

In Firefox

Firefox Quantum brought several changes when it came out, including one to the feature that keeps autoplay videos from launching in the browser.

Head to the address bar and type in about:config. Inside the search box, type in autoplay.

The set preference would normally show up as 0 for autoplay.default. That means videos can play when you land on a page.

Double click on this value and replace it with either of the following:

1 (blocks every autoplay video); and

2 (asks for your permission to play a video, based on the domain you are visitng).

These are just the basic settings you can use, and you can rest assured that both Google and Mozilla are poised to bring further changes to this area. Web-viewing experience is highly valued these days, and browser developers have to expertly balance it with revenue so that all parties stay happy. For now, it is good that there even is an option to stop videos from playing, even though making that happen takes a little doing.

If you browser serves up this or any other issue, and you are pressed for the time or expertise it takes to handle the matter on your own, give us a call and we can fix it for you. Our team of certified and skilled experts are available round-the-clock to make sure no browser issue gets in the way of a pleasant web-viewing experience. We deal with such issues on an hourly basis, which is why we know what works where, and when. Call our browser support professionals for any and all help you may need with Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or any of the other internet browsers used these day, and we promise we can help you out.

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